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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Pic: BBC onlineUp until the second week of the war more than 750 Palestinians were killed and thousands injured. This is the highest Palestinian toll in four decades of occupation, and the figure is expected to be much bigger when a ceasefire is finally called. The few hospitals in Gaza, already under strain on account of the blockade, have not been able to cope with the tragedy. Israeli helicopter gunships have gone to the extent of targeting ambulances carrying the injured. Ehab Mahbub, a Palestinian doctor, was killed when his ambulance was hit by an Israeli missile. The appeals for blood are getting more and more desperate.

Karen Abu Zayed, the Commissioner for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the need for aid “has never been so acute”. The media, both Israeli and international, have been kept out of Gaza despite an Israeli Supreme Court directive to the government to allow the media to cover the unfolding human catastrophe. The United States and other Western countries, which otherwise are great votaries of free media, have not been complaining too much about this.“Disastrous” situationBefore the invasion, a spokesman for the UNRWA described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “disastrous” and said the agency was unable to get medical supplies into Gaza for more than a year because of Israel’s blockade of the border crossings.

In 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court, behaving as an appendage of the state, ruled that the government was authorised to limit the supply of electricity, petrol and diesel to Gaza since these “diminished quantities sufficiently meet humanitarian needs”. The Supreme Court also sanctioned collective punishment for the hapless people almost a year ago. Collective punishment is prohibited under international law. “If the residents of the Gaza Strip deserve to be punished because of the Qassam rockets, then maybe all Israelis need to be punished because of the occupation,” prominent Israeli commentator Gideon Levy wrote in a recent article. The Jewish state, with the tacit support of sections of the Palestinian Authority and neighbouring Arab states, tried first to starve Gazans into submission. They had hoped that the population would rise in revolt and throw out the Hamas-led government. When that blueprint did not materialise, Israel prepared for a military assault to get rid of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza. These are the only groups that are keeping the flag of resistance still flying in the occupied territories. A senior Israeli army officer told The New York Times that the purpose of the invasion was to “make Hamas either lose their will or lose their weapons”.

The U.N. has also not covered itself in glory as Israel keeps on violating all established international norms with impunity. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has not explicitly condemned the targeting of civilian neighbourhoods. The Security Council has failed even to come out with a statement mildly censoring Israel. Instead, the U.N. has played into Israel’s hands by calling for “restraint” on both sides. In doing so, it has put Israel, which has the most powerful army in the region, and the Hamas militia, which operates under the jackboot of the occupation, on the same footing.

As Hannan Ashrawi, Palestinian political activist and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, (PLO) said, the international community should have realised a long time ago that it is the Israeli occupation and the continuous brutalisation of Palestinians that is the root cause of the conflict. In the past seven years, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army. The Israeli toll during the same period was 14 civilians, killed mainly by rocket fire. On the first day of the Israeli “death from above” campaign, more than 300 Palestinian civilians were killed. The Israeli army announced that it had dropped 100 tonnes of bombs in the first nine hours of the operation.

MASSIVE VIOLATIONProfessor Richard Falk, the U.N. rapporteur to the occupied territories, said in the first week of January that the Israeli attack on Gaza represented a severe and massive violation of international humanitarian law as defined by the Geneva Conventions regarding the obligations of an occupying power and the requirements of the laws of war.

The eminent American expert on international law also noted that Israel had ignored recent Hamas initiatives to re-establish the military truce after it expired on December 26. According to Falk, the Israeli military invasion and the catastrophic human toll it has caused “challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel’s violation of international law”.

This complicity, said Falk, extended to those countries knowingly providing military equipment for these illegal attacks. The U.S. is no doubt the main provider of arms for the Zionist state, but some other countries, such as India, are also filling its coffers, helping it to spread terror in the region. Israel is all set to supplant Russia as the biggest supplier of arms to India. In November, just as Israel was getting ready to invade Gaza, a high-level Indian delegation was in Tel Aviv to firm up multi-billion-dollar defence contracts. It is well known that Mossad and the Israeli state-controlled armaments industry have a big stake in all these defence deals.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and other Left parties have appealed to the Indian government to at least snap defence links with Israel in the wake of the Gaza invasion. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has shown the way to world leaders by expelling Israel’s Ambassador to his country. In a televised address, he compared Israel’s invasion of Gaza to the “holocaust” against Jews during the Second World War. He said the President of Israel and the President of the U.S. should be taken together to the International Criminal Court. “How sad that Israel continues to act as the assassin’s arm of the Yankee Empire,” Chavez said.

After flattening Gaza with bombs and missiles fired from their planes and helicopter gunships, Israel sent its elite troops, backed by heavy armour, into the territory. It dropped 1,000-kg bombs to flatten entire neighbourhoods and to prepare the ground for the advance of its troops.

Ceasefire effortsAfter the attack on the U.N. school building, the efforts to bring about a ceasefire have intensified. A joint French-Egyptian initiative, which calls on Israel to withdraw and Hamas to stop firing rockets, has been supported by the U.S. in the U.N. Security Council. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has, however, not called for a halt to the Israeli military operations even after the wilful targeting of the U.N. school. Both Israeli and Hamas leaderships have said they are studying the French-Egyptian proposals seriously.

The Israeli government announced on January 7 that the military would stop shooting for three hours every day to allow essential humanitarian supplies into Gaza. But the Israeli army also stated that it would respond immediately to any provocations. As of the second week of January, the Israeli establishment has indicated that it wants to continue the military offensive despite demands from the international community for an immediate ceasefire. Meanwhile, the defiant Hamas rocket-fire continues, underlining the fact that the Israeli war machine has not been able to achieve its stated goal of disarming Hamas fighters so far.

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Anonymous
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The caution is at least in part because Hamas wants to keep ruling in Gaza, not return to its previous role as a pure resistance movement. Therefore, Israeli officials say, an offensive that caused average people to suffer put pressure on Hamas in real and specific ways.

“Hamas is the dominant organization in Gaza,” a top military official said in a briefing last week that was given on condition of anonymity. “They are the regime and feel very connected to the people. They do not want to lose that connection to the people.”

The Israeli theory of what it tried to do here is summed up in a Hebrew phrase heard across Israel and throughout the military in the past weeks: “baal habayit hishtageya,” or “the boss has lost it.” It evokes the image of a madman who cannot be controlled.

“This phrase means that if our civilians are attacked by you, we are not going to respond in proportion but will use all means we have to cause you such damage that you will think twice in the future,” said Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser.

It is a calculated rage. The phrase comes from business and refers to a decision by a shop owner to cut prices so drastically that he appears crazy to the consumer even though he knows he has actually made a shrewd business decision.

The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza, especially because Israel’s antirocket attacks in previous years had been more measured.

When Hamas’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya, appeared on Hamas television from his hiding spot last Monday, he picked up on the Israeli archetype, referring in Arabic to the battle under way as “el harb el majnouna,” the mad or crazy war.

For most, of course, feeling abused like this has created deep rage at Israel.

“If you want to make peace with the Palestinians, they are tired of bombs, drones and planes,” said Mohammad Abu Muhaisin, a 35-year-old resident of the southern city of Rafah who is affiliated with Fatah, the rival to Hamas that rules in the West Bank and was ejected from Gaza in June 2007. “But a guy whose child has just been killed doesn’t want peace. He wants war.”

There are, however, limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas.

Halima Dardouna, 37, from the northern city of Jabaliya, whose house was destroyed by an Israeli shell, said both Fatah and Hamas were to blame because of their rivalry, “and we are the victims.”

* Hamas itself must be so weakened that the rocket-attacks will cease or be reduced to an absolute minimum

* there must be no risk whatsoever of any paramilitary group developing similar tactics in the West Bank. A nightmare for the more thoughtful Israeli military planners is that any perception of success for Hamas stemming from the use of the rockets could well lead to groups on the West Bank developing the same tactics. The proximity of the occupied territories means that that would put all the heavily populated areas of Israel at risk

* the massive use of force in Gaza must send a message to Hizbollah that Israel has learned from its failure in 2006 and will never tolerate a further shower of rockets from southern Lebanon (see "Lebanon: the war after the war", 11 October 2006).

The problem is that although Operation Cast Lead "has" to work, the chances of it doing so are remote. For unless Israel reoccupies the whole of the Gaza strip and maintains rigid control over a deeply antagonistic population of nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, the rocket-attacks will almost certainly continue. What must be appreciated is that there is now widespread knowledge of how to construct crude but deadly devices from quite basic materials using equally rudimentary machinery. Moreover, the very intensity of the Israeli military action demonstrates how effective in their political impact these rockets can be.

Indeed, the way these rockets have developed in Gaza since 2007 is far more significant than most people realise. It is at least as important as the rapid evolution of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan, with all the effects that they have had and continue to have. The consequence of not countering these crude Gaza rockets is that Israel's security will deteriorate still further. Many Israelis understand the predicament, while making the fundamental mistake of believing that this is a problem with a military answer.

The early indications are that public opinion in Israel is supportive of the operation in Gaza. It may take time, but at some point time in the coming years there more and more Israelis will come to realise that there is no alternative to a negotiated and fair settlement with the Palestinians, both in the West Bank and Gaza. It is just possible that the disaster that is now unfolding, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, will actually hasten that process.

Much of the military action has been directed against the police and security forces of the PNA, with substantial numbers having been killed and many more hundreds taken into custody. Police stations and barracks have been destroyed, as have intelligence and security centres. Moreover, and in some ways much more significant, there has been the destruction of the PNA’s administrative infrastructure.

“Information on this remains incomplete but is sufficient to show that there has been widespread destruction of offices and facilities of PNA ministries and Palestinian non-government organisations. The ministry of local government and the ministry of education in Ramallah have been ransacked by Israeli troops as has the Palestinian bureau of statistics.”

At that time, some analysts anticipated that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) would extend their actions into Gaza, but international opposition to the casualties and destruction in the West Bank, and internal concern over the consequences of such an escalation, prevented that. Instead, the emphasis remained on the West Bank, with the construction of the massive security “wall” and forceful control over the Palestinian population movements within its confines. Both of these policies fuelled a burning resentment.

The war's second objective, the prevention of smuggling, was not met either. The head of the Shin Bet security service has estimated that smuggling will be renewed within two months.

Most of the smuggling that is going on is meant to provide food for a population under siege, and not to obtain weapons. But even if we accept the scare campaign concerning the smuggling with its exaggerations, this war has served to prove that only poor quality, rudimentary weapons passed through the smuggling tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt.

Israel's ability to achieve its third objective is also dubious. Deterrence, my foot. The deterrence we supposedly achieved in the Second Lebanon War has not had the slightest effect on Hamas, and the one supposedly achieved now isn't working any better: The sporadic firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip has continued over the past few days.

The fourth objective, which remained undeclared, was not met either. The IDF has not restored its capability. It couldn't have, not in a quasi-war against a miserable and poorly-equipped organization relying on makeshift weapons, whose combatants barely put up a fight.

The heroic descriptions and victory poems written abut the "military triumph" will not serve to change reality. The pilots were flying on training missions and the ground forces were engaged in exercises that involved joining up and firing weapons.

The describing of the operation as a "military achievement" by the various generals and analysts who offered their take on the operation is plain ridiculous.

We have not weakened Hamas. The vast majority of its combatants were not harmed and popular support for the organization has in fact increased. Their war has intensified the ethos of resistance and determined endurance. A country which has nursed an entire generation on the ethos of a few versus should know to appreciate that by now. There was no doubt as to who was David and who was Goliath in this war.

The population in Gaza, which has sustained such a severe blow, will not become more moderate now. On the contrary, the national sentiment will now turn more than before against the party which inflicted that blow - the State of Israel. Just as public opinion leans to the right in Israel after each attack against us, so it will in Gaza following the mega-attack that we carried out against them.

If anyone was weakened because of this war, it was Fatah, whose fleeing from Gaza and its abandonment have now been given special significance. The succession of failures in this war needs to include, of course, the failure of the siege policy. For a while, we have already come to realize that is ineffective. The world boycotted, Israel besieged and Hamas ruled (and is still ruling).

But this war's balance, as far as Israel is concerned, does not end with the absence of any achievement. It has placed a heavy toll on us, which will continue to burden us for some time. When it comes to assessing Israel's international situation, we must not allow ourselves to be fooled by the support parade by Europe's leaders, who came in for a photo-op with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Israel's actions have dealt a serious blow to public support for the state. While this does not always translate itself into an immediate diplomatic situation, the shockwaves will arrive one day. The whole world saw the images. They shocked every human being who saw them, even if they left most Israelis cold.

The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way.

Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the IDF did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media.

So what was achieved, after all? As a war waged to satisfy considerations of internal politics, the operation has succeeded beyond all expectations. Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu is getting stronger in the polls. And why? Because we could not get enough of the war.

Analysts said that even if the international community is ready to help, who should be the recipient of this assistance will be a tricky problem.

In principle, the Palestinian National Authority, dominated by President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, is the universally acknowledged government in the land and should be the recipient of the assistance. However, there is widespread worry that the Abbas government, which rules only the West Bank and has deep disputes with Hamas, can hardly ensure the fund would be put immediately to Gaza's reconstruction.

The authority was also criticized for its weak response to Israeli offensive, which has let down the Palestinians and the Arab world at large, local media reported.

Meanwhile, Hamas has expressed its strong determination to dominate the reconstruction process.

Fatahy Hamad, a senior Hamas lawmaker, urged non-governmental organizations not to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian National Authority.

"There are two confronting voices in Palestine and I think only if the Fatah chooses the means of Jihad (holy war) and resistance, can we finally realize reconciliation," Hamad said in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Hamas has also offered to deliver a total of 28.6 million euros (36.5 million dollars) in relief fund for victims of the Israeli attacks, a move reportedly aimed at winning local residents' support.

However, it seems unlikely that the international community will cooperate with Hamas, which is termed a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, analysts said.

ASSISTANCE AND RECONSTRUCTION UNEASE ISRAEL

The handling of the international assistance as well as the reconstruction has also posed a tough challenge to Israel. The Jewish country is trying by all means to block capital flow into Gaza and keeping a tight grip over the enclave to thwart any possible Hamas involvement in the reconstruction process.

While meeting with visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon ahead of Ban's visit to Gaza earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Hamas should be sidelined from any legitimacy in the reconstruction process.

The reconstruction efforts must be coordinated by the United Nations along with international organizations, and with the active cooperation of Egypt, the Palestinian National Authority and pragmatic countries, Olmert said.

Analysts noted, however, that Israel does not have full trust on Abbas government either. The Israeli government turned down the latter's request for remittance to its employees in Gaza section right after the ceasefire, fearing that financial support for reconstruction might end up in Hamas' hands.

Israel has also been highly alert to materials such as cement and steel, as they may be used for military purpose by Hamas.

Analysts worry about how long the temporary peace could last when Gaza reconstruction is unfolding in full swing.

As European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana said, "the ceasefire is still fragile and every effort must be made to ensure that it is solid, durable and lasting."

The rocket barrages on communities near the Gaza Strip, particularly since the official end of the cease-fire on Friday, have led Israel to officially change its line from "quiet in exchange for quiet" to open threats.

The Olmert-Barak-Livni trio has decided to respond, and the timing will depend on operational conditions; in other words, the Israel Air Force will go into action. The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service assume that increased operations from the air will be met with heavier rocket fire from Hamas on targets farther from Gaza. The IDF might then launch a ground operation.

Ground troops have not received operational orders, but on the home front, warning systems have been upgraded in communities 30 to 40 kilometers from the border, in rocket range. That's the distance Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin discussed with the cabinet when he warned that Hamas rockets can reach the outskirts of Be'er Sheva. Advertisement

These are upgraded Katyushas that have recently been smuggled into Gaza. Diskin told the ministers that Hamas wants a conflict with Israel for a limited time to force a renewed lull under more favorable conditions. Meanwhile, a number of Hamas leaders have gone underground in the Strip, out of fear of assassination by Israel.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opened Sunday's cabinet meeting in Jerusalem by saying: "A responsible government does not rush into battle and does not evade it." The upcoming elections brought mutual recriminations to the surface during the meeting. Defense Minister Ehud Barak called on Olmert to "restrain irresponsible chatter" by some ministers, meaning Kadima's Tzipi Livni and Vice Premier Haim Ramon.

As for a ground operation, the question is how to get Hamas to go back to the understandings in place at the beginning of the cease-fire without risking all-out fighting that would begin with rockets on Ashdod and Be'er Sheva and end with the return of Israeli armor to Gaza.

A series of decisions - the disengagement in the summer of 2005, the agreement to allow Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006 (which Hamas won), and the cease-fire of June this year - all led to the current dilemma. Israel must now decide among a number of bad options.

A point the media has missed over the past few days is that most of the rockets are being launched by Islamic Jihad and smaller factions, which Hamas has stopped reining in. If Hamas goes into action, there could be 100 rockets a day instead of dozens.

Meanwhile, Hamas is leaving open the option of dialogue. On Sunday, two spokesmen for the organization in Gaza complained that Egypt had not asked for a discussion on extending the cease-fire. Egypt seems in a hurry to mediate between Israel and Hamas, perhaps hoping that if Hamas bleeds, it will reconsider its arrogant attitude toward Cairo.

Hamas also has a less-than-spectacular array of choices. Escalating rocket fire will put its leaders in Israeli sights. The Arab world will see Hamas as a "resistance" organization like Hezbollah but it will not be able to function. A renewed cease-fire without an upgrade will make Hamas appear to have knuckled under to the Jews. Israeli defense officials strongly believe that Haniyeh and his people were unwillingly maneuvered into the current escalation by Khaled Meshal, Hamas' political leader in Damascus.

Iran is the one country - aside from Israel - with the most at stake in the outcome. It sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah not only to torment Israel but also to spread its influence in the Arab world. A convincing defeat of Hamas would undercut that strategy, and presumably Iran's ability to resist Western pressure in any broad bargaining - for example, over its support for terrorist groups and even its nuclear program. "It's an ambitious scenario," said Indyk, with a sobering caveat, "that would require things to get significantly worse before they could get better."

But Israel's attacks also could fail outright, and history suggests that as the more likely scenario, Middle East experts across the political spectrum said.

The strikes - and the Arab anger over scenes of death and destruction - have highlighted divisions in the Middle East that can prevent Arab nations from working with Israel.

Of course, Egypt, whose peace treaty with Israel is anathema to militants in the Middle East, kept its border to Gaza largely shut last week, and its president, Hosni Mubarak, quarreled openly with the leader of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant Shiite group that now shares power in Lebanon. And at a meeting of the Arab League, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister gently and indirectly rebuked Hamas for provoking the conflict. Those actions were in line with Israeli dreams. But the attacks also subjected the regimes in Egypt and other moderate Arab nations to blistering scorn from inflamed Arab populations.

And that widened the rifts between rulers and citizens in countries nominally allied with the United States and willing to deal with Israel. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that regional tensions will intensify. The images of carnage could fuel new hatreds and radicalize some who felt that peace talks offer more hope than resistance.

In some ways, the Gaza attacks have been reminiscent of the gamble Israel took, and largely lost, in Lebanon in 1982. It invaded to eliminate the threat of Yasser Arafat's forces, which were then encamped on its northern border. It accomplished that goal, driving Arafat into exile in Tunis, and eventually he recognized Israel and negotiated. But in the meantime, a new and virulently anti-Israel threat was born in Lebanon in the form of Hezbollah. Israel's northern border remained insecure, and Iran's influence grew.

Now Abbas, already deeply mired in a rivalry with Hamas, could find himself further isolated from Palestinian sentiment the longer the Israeli assaults continue. Signs were growing last week that the fighting was emboldening Palestinian resistance, prompting Abbas to say he was prepared to walk away from the peace process President George W. Bush began in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2007.

"What does he have to offer us a year after Annapolis?" Mustafa Barghouti, a doctor, independent Palestinian legislator and advocate of democracy, said of Abbas, in a telephone conversation from the West Bank. "They promised us an agreement by the end of the year. What do we have after this year?"

Barghouti, who was a minister in the short-lived unity government that followed Hamas's victory in 2006 elections, said the only durable solution was an accommodation that included Hamas. "There are two ways to deal with Hamas," he said. "Either confront them, which makes them more extreme, or accept them in the political process."

That would hearten Islamic militants in Egypt and Jordan and make those countries' leaders shiver a bit more; and it would very likely embolden Iran in its ambitions for regional leadership and insistence on a nuclear program.

Most analysts expect that some sort of negotiated cease-fire with Hamas is inevitable, since Israel seems neither willing nor able to reoccupy Gaza and replace its leadership. That, then, would leave the group with many followers in Gaza, even if its ranks are badly battered, its leaders driven underground and its formal centers of power, through which it might deliver services to its people, are destroyed by Israeli bombs. "Hamas as an institution is not really sustaining casualties," said Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force for Palestine. "The people of Gaza are the ones who are paying the price."

Daniel Levy, an Israeli analyst with the New America Foundation in Washington, said the flaw in the Israeli strategy is the belief that people in Gaza will blame their own government, and not the Israelis, for the new wave of violence.

Israel, for its part, is determined to avoid the military and political catastrophe of its incursion in Lebanon in 2006 to squelch cross-border rocket attacks by Hezbollah not all that different from the ones by Hamas. That fight ended with a UN resolution and international peacekeepers but also, eventually, a rearmed Hezbollah.

"Israel believes its deterrence was lost in that war," David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote on Wednesday, "and Israel's current campaign against Hamas should be seen as an effort to regain that deterrence."

One lesson Israel learned from Lebanon, he argued, was to lower expectations, depriving Hamas of the chance to declare victory simply by surviving the Israeli assault, as Hezbollah did. Israel has done that by remaining vague about its final goals. Israel also seems to have prepared better; by all appearances its forces were following a methodical campaign of strikes, even as it tried to win the propaganda war - or at least to do less badly this time, by trying to minimize civilian casualties.

Almost everyone in Washington agrees that the timing of the latest crisis had at least one benefit: It came before the inauguration of Obama on Jan. 20. Although he has expressed staunch support for Israel - at one point justifying a response to Hamas rocket attacks - he has raised expectations of a change in policy in the Middle East. The fighting has certainly pushed the Arab-Israeli conflict back to the front of a U.S. agenda crowded with foreign crises, from Iran to India to North Korea.

It is likely that the immediate fighting will have ended by Inauguration Day. If so, President Obama will be able to capitalize on the cease-fire to renew a push for a permanent settlement. He once suggested throwing American weight behind regional talks that would include Hamas, but that may no longer be a possibility. Bush fiercely resisted any accommodation with a group the United States and European Union classify as a terrorist organization.

"He has one advantage: that this is happening now," said Asali of the American Task Force for Palestine. "The passionate reactions, the emotional reactions, the hatred, et cetera, et cetera, will be directed at the present administration rather than the next one. But that is a slight silver lining."

The Palestinian terrorists in Gaza are expert at manipulating the news media to their point of view. Already, the top media outlets have filled television screens with human interest stories of Palestinian women and children being blown to bits by the overpowering and relentless Israeli Defense Forces. Story after story appears with frantic Palestinian women crying out that their lives are disrupted by these terrible bombing raids, that there is no food to feed their families, that their husbands are missing. And while they are talking, there is chaos in the background of bombed out buildings and B-roll of children being wheeled into hospitals that are supposed to be overcrowded due to Israeli attacks.

The story that is not told is far more compelling, but you won’t hear it on CNN or the other major news outlets because they are providing a biased point of view. First, I know of few nations at war who actually provide medical aid and supplies to the enemy they are trying to destroy. Nobody with a mustard seed of God’s goodness in them wants to create, maintain or revel in human suffering. The Israelis are not only opening the war zone to convoys of medical supplies, they are opening their own hospitals to Palestinians in need. Interesting, however, that a communication from the Israeli Embassy indicated that many of the Palestinian children treated in Israeli hospitals were victims of Palestinian fired missiles.

Another example of exactly what is going on is found in the Israeli assassination of senior Hamas terror operative Nizir Rian, who organized suicide bombings against Israelis. The Israeli Embassy issued this statement: “The multiple secondary explosions that resulted from the attack confirm that Rian's house functioned as a weapons storage facility. The house also served as a communications center, beneath which a clandestine escape tunnel for Hamas terrorists was located. Rian was in the house at the time of the attack, which was carried out successfully based upon IDF and ISA intelligence. As with all IAF activity, every possible effort was made to avoid collateral civilian harm.”

Another example of exactly what is going on is found in the Israeli assassination of senior Hamas terror operative Nizir Rian, who organized suicide bombings against Israelis. The Israeli Embassy issued this statement: “The multiple secondary explosions that resulted from the attack confirm that Rian's house functioned as a weapons storage facility. The house also served as a communications center, beneath which a clandestine escape tunnel for Hamas terrorists was located. Rian was in the house at the time of the attack, which was carried out successfully based upon IDF and ISA intelligence. As with all IAF activity, every possible effort was made to avoid collateral civilian harm.”

While the news media is clamoring about how Israel is targeting civilians, the story of why some homes are targeted is totally missed. Hamas and the Palestinians house their weapons, command centers and leaders in civilian communities for two reasons: one is to cause pause when attacking because women and children will be harmed; and the other is to use women and children as shields against such attacks. The mainstream news media only tells part of the story from a slanted perspective. Jesus said in Matthew 24:4, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” He also said in John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Seek the truth, not just the facts—the truth is never biased

Amos Gilad, head of Diplomatic-Security Bureau of Israeli Defense Ministry, left Cairo on Friday after a several-hour visit to Egypt for talks with Egyptian mediators on a ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza, without announcing any progress on the latest talks during his second visit to Egypt in two days.

Israeli diplomatic-security cabinet was scheduled to meet Friday to vote on the Egyptian offer, but it has decided to put off the debate until Gilad returns from Cairo with the latest information.

According to Egyptian media reports after Gilad's talks with Egyptian officials on Thursday, Israel responded to the Egyptian ceasefire initiative "favorably," but had some "reservations" on Hamas' vision.

Mazloum said a number of thorny issues, including the reopening of Gaza border crossings and the pullout of Israeli troops, should be dealt with carefully and the two warring sides can not compromise easily.

the stories about children killed in gaza were heartrending..my arab friend got a phone call from gaza about how they had used some chemicals during attacks..it is painful..the entire episode..BTW, thanks avi for dropping by..ya boss, unlucky, dint get to meet that sister airhostess UD again. not so far..lemme c if i can catch up with them during my april visit to mumbai..haha.bye

My friend Hannah Mermelstein works for justice and peace. She is a woman of Jewish descent who believes in doing justice and loving kindness for everyone, without distinctions based on religion or nationality. Here is what she is seeing, hearing, and experiencing from her current location in Palestine ...

When it comes to reporting on the mideast, I trust the U.S. media less and less, which is why on-the-ground reports like this one ... from someone I know and whose integrity I trust ... mean so much. You can read 2 of Hannah's email messages below the jump ...

December 28, 2008 Today, 271 men, women, and children who were alive yesterday are nowdead in Gaza. More than 900 are injured, including 180 critically.The death toll is rising as more people are dug out from under therubble, and the Israeli government promises that the attacks willcontinue, and asks its people for patience.

Can a Palestinians "crisis" actually be better than the normal daily lives for large chunks of the world? Or is that just hyperbole?

For someone like me, who has lived in the developing world, it often comes across like this:

"Oh my god, we have a crisis! 7-11 is out of Ben and Jerrys!!"

Is that really a crisis?

I have a hypothesis. Happiness is just a state of mind. The Palestinians are miserable, not because of what they're lacking (others with less are happy), but because they're just in a state of unhappiness or depression.

When has giving someone more things ever been a real fix for depression?

You can try to fix individual problems like a lack of electricity (better than most of the world) or a lack of first-world health care (better than most of the world), but that is going to do _nothing_ to fix the underlying depression.

So, my advice if you want to really help move towards peace, is not to worry about these trivial "problems" where Palestine actually have it better than much of the world, and instead work on the core issues.

The Palestinians are miserable because they are miserable, not because they don't have enough stuff.

How do we cure this depression? It seems to be a key issue of lacking "hope". Rather than focusing on trivial things, "hope" is where you might want to put your focus.

don't doubt the suffering caused by Israel's bombing of Gaza, and I don't doubt that many innocents are victims. Of course, had Hamas not been launching missiles against the population of Israel Gaza would have been left undisturbed. Enough is enough.

Arabic is a language easily taken to exaggeration and hyperbole. The easy use of the word genocide is an instance of this Arab habit. There is no genocide in Sudan but there is in the Strip. Sorry, I had it in reverse. This lying also extends to details that can be quickly checked by reporters who don't. Would you not think that, with the hysteria about starvation, you'd see some bloated bellies on the TV? Instead, you see healthy children and strong young men in the rituals of resistance.

And sneakers. You have to look closely at the sneakers, seemingly new and, of course, costly.

In the midst of all this catastrophe propaganda there are some facts. These were provided to me by Jacob Dallal, an old and trusted friend who happens to work for the spokesman's unit of the I.D.F. He has been my informant in several comparable situations: he has never told me a lie or even a fib.

Today (Wed.), 93 truckloads with 2,500 tons of food and medical supplies were transferred to Gaza. Since the beginning of the operation in Gaza Saturday, 6,500 tons of food and medicine were transferred to Gaza. The World Food Program has informed Israel that they will not be resuming shipment of food into Gaza because their warehouses are at full capacity, with enough supplies for at least 2 weeks. 12 Palestinians from Gaza entered Israel today (Wed.) for medical treatment.

, I have been following the situation in the middle-east to the best of my ability. First off, kudos goes to John McCain for becoming the Republican candidate in this year’s election. Ok, now on to Israel, first we have an article from the Jerusalem Report about how a coalition of 8 British humanitarian groups are slamming Israel on its conduct in regards to its actions in the Gaza Strip. You can read the article in its entirety above, however, I’ve chosen a few highlights that I want to talk about below.

The report said that more than 1.1 million people, about 80 percent of Gaza’s residents, are now dependent on food aid, as opposed to 63 percent in 2006, unemployment is close to 40 percent and close to 70 percent of the 110,000 workers employed in the private sector have lost their jobs. It also said that hospitals are suffering from power cuts of up to 12 hours a day, and the water and sewage systems were close to collapse, with 40-50 million liters (10-12 million gallons) of sewage pouring into the sea daily.

I have total sympathy with the Palestinian residents in that regard, I really do. However what happened with all that aid money that was sent to them? There must have been billions, at least millions of dollars pumped into their country for basic aid. Now you may be quite surprised to hear this but even though Israel has listed Gaza as an enemy territory, guess what, they still send aid there!

The Defense Ministry also said medicines and medical equipment are shipped into Gaza with no limitation. On Wednesday, a typical day, the military said it allowed 69 truckloads of supplies into Gaza, including basic food and baby formula.

…

“Israel has the right and obligation to protect its citizens, but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care,” said Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen, one of groups behind the report. “Punishing the entire Gazan population by denying them these basic human rights is utterly indefensible. The current situation is man-made and must be reversed.”

‘Occupying power’? What are they smoking? Israel left the territory in 2005! Everyone knows this. The only legal duty that the Israeli government has to the Palestinians in Gaza is to stop them from launching rockets into Israel. The Israeli blockade exists for a reason and that reason is to stop Hamas from smuggeling weapons from Egypt and/or from air or sea. That’s why there is a blockade. Does Amnesty International UK think Israel likes putting its troops in danger just to patrol the border while being in the firing line? However Amnesty International UK is right in one thing, the current situation is man-made, it can easily be reversed. All that needs to happen is for Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel and not harm Israel again, that’s it. Then the blockade goes down and the peace process can really begin (the talks that are happening between Israel and Fatah are as worthless as Olmert’s and Mazen’s leadership).

The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza, especially because Israel’s antirocket attacks in previous years had been more measured.

isrealy just protecting their ppl..their message is clear kill them before they kill us..what we think that they will be quite if some one come and kill their ppl like what happen in india(mumbai).No they wont and they have guts

Since the end of the IDF's operation in Gaza, there is a growing debate over Palestinian casualty claims. While the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and the Palestinian Ministry of Health have announced that the majority of fatalities were civilians, the IDF has estimated that "more than two-thirds of [the deaths] were Hamas members." (The Jerusalem Post has reported that "IDF Military Intelligence has set up a team to produce a comprehensive list of Palestinian fatalities… It will be completed within two weeks, officials said, but it is not clear whether it will be made public." The International Herald Tribune claimed that "Israel … said it has the names of more than 700 Hamas militants killed in fighting.")